During the events of the Battle For The Cowl, Tim Drake took on the mantle of Batman to stop Jason Todd's mass murder spree... I decided to give him his own suit, kinda like he just found some spare suits and threw together one Batman suit, instead of just wearing one of Bruce's old suits.

I like TeLand's idea/fanon that once Tim passed his Gauntlet at sixteen, Bruce started making Batman suits for him, to be stored until they were needed. Obviously, Bruce made 'em in several sizes based on Tim's expected growth, and disposed of the smaller ones as Tim grew up, etc. And when Bruce is injured and/or killed, Tim finds 'em and is both flattered and creeped out that Bruce had both respected Tim enough to make him heir to the mantle *and* not bothered to discuss it with him.

Sure, but Te's fanon assumes both that Dick's got serious problems with Bruce/Batman due to having been summarily fired, and that Dick doesn't have the right personality for the job--being both more happy-go-lucky and far too involved with his other team(s) to dedicate his life to the loner Bat-obsession. She sees Tim, however, as more temperamentally fitted for the job, being an obsessive little geek/stalker at heart and (having grown up with such distant/absent parents) sharing some of Bruce's wire-cage monkey isolation and, well, borderline sociopathy.

I don't share all of her opinions on the Batfamily members--my sense of Bruce does *not* include a big woobie streak, and conversely my Nightwing is more an underlyingly nice kid rather than a roughhousing asshole--but she's sold my on her Tim and her Steph completely.

Dick has proven himself as a well managed Batman, considering he had to battle both his parent's and his mentor's reanimated corpses during Blackest Night, and while everyone was feeling depressed afterwards, he made a true Batman act and shrugged it off like nothing happened, telling them they had no time for grieving..

For me, the best BatDick (though not in the outfit) is that scene from THE OBSIDIAN AGE where, following Batman's post-mortem message, Dick has selected and convened a new JLA to replace the ones lost back in time. He finds them bickering around the table and (from offpage) delivers a perfect cold-and-cutting Bat speech to get them back on task. My stuff's currently in storage, so I don't have it word-for-work, but--brrr!

"Not here. This is the Hall of Justice. Got a problem with a teammate? Guy sitting next to you stole your wife? This Watchtower has <whatever>hundred self-repairing floors where you can duke it out in your spare time. But not here. Not. Here. This hall is where the *Justice League* meet to do their job. The. Justice. League!"

Chills go down your spine. Even Green Arrow jolts back upright and shapes up--complaining, of course, but exactly the same way he complained about Batman.

But Te's got a point that, while Dick *can* be a good Batman (as he proved after Bruce's "death" in the Infinite Ultimate Final We-Mean-It-This-Time Crisis Excuse for Crossover Sales), Dick is at heart a warmer and more social person and would have trouble maintaining the grim and absolutist Batman persona, while Tim (despite his age and size) shares more of Bruce's obsessive ruthless drive.

Any good comic book that's been through several decades and several writers is like a Rorshach test; you can see so many different versions of it depending on who you are and where you're standing. It's what I love about the best fan fiction--especially from writers who look at the same character differently for different stories, like turning a kaleidoscope.

Gwah! I'm too old to still be awake this late (don't know where you are, but it's almost 3:30 AM here), so I'ma go get some much-needed sleep.

It's like 4:25 for me... And I don't feel like sleeping, so looks like I'm pulling another all nighter.. Granted, Tim does have Bruce's paranoia and detective skills, but as the years went on each Robin showed different characteristics and skills that Bruce himself had, Dick had Compassion and Gymnastics, Jason had Rage and the drive to make himself the best, Tim had his calm collected nature and Detective skills, and Damian was technically considered the "true son" for having each of these qualities wrapped in your own tiny Batman... Then he died... Fan favorite character nearly everyone loves, lets just go ahead and kill him off, seems like a good idea.

he was wearing Bruce's old suit, so the more classic Batman look from the early 2000's- essentially what Bruce wore before his "death" since Grayson had his own version of the Batsuit that he wore, and Jason had his, Tim just took the one that was on display on the Batcave